The Lesser Sadness
by Newcomb
Summary: Crush the world beneath your heel. Destroy everyone who has ever slighted you. Tear down creation just to see if you can. Kill anything beautiful. Take what you want. Desecrate everything.
1. Chapter 1: Once More, With Feeling

**Extended summary: **A subversion of stories where benevolent spirits/grim reapers/personifications of Fate send Harry back in time to make things right and solve his every problem. What if, instead, those spirits were a bit more… malevolent?

* * *

_**The Lesser Sadness**_

"_Were it not sinful then, striving to mend,_

_To mar the subject that before was well?"_

-William Shakespeare, "Sonnet 103"

* * *

**Chapter 1 – Once More, With Feeling**

Eyes closed, listening to the silence, Harry Potter slowly became aware of his awareness. He was alone. He was not sure, for a long, timeless moment, that he was even there himself.

Inside his head, he slowly orbited a concept, a thought, an idea. He was adrift in the dark, and at that moment, the idea seemed more solid than he did. Harry approached the idea slowly, carefully, as if it were made of glass, and gently alighted on the fact that he was facedown on a surface, that he could feel his face pressed up against something. That bare fact lent credence to the possibility of his existence. And, so concluding, he became conscious of his surroundings.

Harry opened his eyes, blinking against the glare, and pulled himself to his feet. He was indoors, and everything was white. There were two long counters running the length of the room, and Harry stood between them. As he focused on the counters, he became aware of details. He wasn't sure if they'd been there all along, or if his focus had somehow called them into being, but he saw brass scales, piles of gemstones, and stacks of ledgers littering the long counters.

"Dear me," said a voice beside him in a tone of mild curiosity. "I certainly wasn't expecting something like this."

Albus Dumbledore stood next to Harry, examining the surroundings. He wore white, palatial robes, and he had a look of calm beneficence on his face.

"Ah, I see," said Harry. "I'm quite dead, then?"

"Do you really think so?" asked Dumbledore, turning to face Harry directly.

"I let Voldemort kill me. I didn't try to stop him." Harry shook his head. "I should have died."

"And that," said Dumbledore with an air of long-awaited satisfaction, "will have made all the difference, I think."

Harry looked at his old Headmaster and felt an old, tired anger. "Once, just once," he said, "I wish you'd explain something without making me struggle through it on my own."

"Ah, Harry," said Dumbledore jovially. "You must forgive an old man his foibles." The smile slid off his face like rainwater. "My long-windedness is, after all, a trifle compared to the things for which I'll shortly be asking your forgiveness."

Harry chose not to engage with that. He looked around at the high, white ceilings, his gaze tracking down to the single, high-set counter at the end of the room. "Where do you suppose we are?"

"I haven't the faintest idea," said Dumbledore, squinting at their surroundings. "This is, as they say, your party. What does it look like to you?"

"Well," said Harry, pushing his glasses up his nose, surprised, for a second, that he had them. He looked down and was sidetracked for a moment. He was wearing his school robes. He shook his head and looked back up. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say we were at Gringotts."

"Good gracious, really?" asked Dumbledore, and for the first time since he'd appeared at Harry's side, a note of uncertainty crept into his voice.

As if Harry's words had triggered something, the room slowly started to darken around them, all except for a patch of light surrounding the high counter at the end of the room.

"I take it we're supposed to approach?" asked Harry.

Dumbledore shrugged eloquently. "I confess, Harry, that I'm quite out of my depth at this particular moment."

Harry shrugged in return and started to walk forward, Dumbledore at his side. Their footsteps clattered on the marble floor, sending hollow echoes up to the high ceiling. As they neared the high counter, details resolved themselves. The counter was thick white stone, a solid slab of it. Three enormous, high-backed chairs sat behind it.

Dumbledore hung back, and reached out a hand toward Harry's shoulder, as if moving to hold him back, but Harry walked forward and approached, stepping up the handful of low, wide stairs and looking down at the counter. Sitting on top, arranged neatly in a row, were seven stone tablets. They were grey, the color of a tomb, and each one was about the size of a book. A single image was carved on each of them, simple yet elegant.

A mirror. A serpent. An hourglass. A gravestone. An archway. A tower. A skull.

"The choice, in the end, is entirely yours."

The voice came from in front of him. Harry looked up, and then took an unthinking step back.

The chairs had been filled. Three figures, each one easily fifteen feet tall, sat straight-backed against the rigid stone. They wore robes of burnt sienna, held closed at the waist by a rough-spun rope – a monk's cincture. Their hoods flared out and covered an area of pure darkness where their heads would go. The only thing visible though the hoods were blazing, glowing, mono-color eyes – orange, yellow, and violet, respectively.

"Who are you?" said Harry, his voice coming out too high, and too loud.

"Benefactors," said the one in the middle, leaning forward slightly. He was the one with orange eyes.

"Harry," said Dumbledore, stepping to his side. "We must leave this place at once."

"You cannot," said the figure to Harry's right, the one with violet eyes.

"Not until you hear us out." That was the yellow-eyed one on the left.

"And then what?" said Harry. "I go back? I'm pretty sure I'm dead."

"Not even a little bit," said Orange-Eyes. "When Voldemort used your blood to come back, he took on a measure of the protection your mother gave you. He tethered you to life while he lives. And you, with an accidental Horcrux in your head, tether _him _to life while _you_ live." His head moved fractionally as those blazing eyes turned to regard Dumbledore. "See how I explained that in just three sentences?"

Dumbledore opened his mouth to reply, and Violet-Eyes raised a black-gloved hand, snapping his fingers. "We won't need to be hearing from you until later, I think," said the figure, and Dumbledore's mouth closed with a _crack_. He looked between Harry and the three figures warily.

"Who are you?" asked Harry again.

Orange-Eyes leaned back in his chair and steepled his fingers. "We're a relatively new entity. A trial run, to see if beings of a… _darker _persuasion can actually cooperate towards a common goal. Consider us to be like your Department of International Magical Cooperation."

"Only not so much _international _as _interplanar_," said Violet-Eyes.

"And with more screaming," said Yellow-Eyes.

"What am I doing here?" Harry crossed his arms. He was raw, his emotions tightly-wound.

"Straight to the point, I see," said Orange-Eyes. "To put it bluntly, we've had our eyes on you for some time. You're quite an interesting human, when all is said and done. You've dealt with more in your young life than many adults do in the entire span of theirs, and with more grace, besides."

"And yet you've lost so much," said Violet-Eyes. "Even now, at the very, very end."

Harry thought of Remus and Tonks, and Fred, their bodies lying still and cold on the floor of the Great Hall. "What of it?" he asked wearily.

Yellow-Eyes leaned forward. "What if you were given a chance to get some of it back?"

Feeling himself tense, Harry forced himself to stay rooted to the spot instead of backing up and running, like his every instinct was telling him to do. "I'd say that you don't strike me as the kind of fellows who do something for nothing."

"Quite right," said Orange-Eyes. "We're providing a service, after all. We expect to be compensated fairly. But we're offering something quite extraordinary: the opportunity to go back and do it all over. A fresh start. Another chance. Everyone you've lost, you could save. Remus Lupin. Nymphadora Tonks. Fred Weasley. Cedric Diggory." The figure leaned forward and practically caressed the last name. "Sirius Black."

Harry saw Dumbledore stir at his side. He put a hand on Harry's shoulder, shaking his head emphatically. Purple-Eyes raised his hand threateningly, and Dumbledore backed off.

Reaching forward and tracing a black glove over the table, Yellow-Eyes gestured at the seven stone tablets. "Do you recognize these symbols, Harry?"

"They do seem familiar, somehow," said Harry. He leaned forward, almost in spite of himself, and looked over the images again.

"Moments from your life," said Orange-Eyes. "Important moments. Confrontations." He reached out and tapped the tablet on the far right, the one with the image of the mirror. "Your confrontation with Quirrell." He moved his hand to the next tablet. "Your fight with Salazar's basilisk." He looked up at Harry. "I need not go on, surely."

Harry looked over the tablets, placing them in his memory. There was a neat kind of symmetry – one for each of his years at Hogwarts. He stared hard at the last tablet – the image of the skull. "And that one?"

"Well, given the fact that you're not actually dead, you of course have the option to simply return to the Forest," said Violet-Eyes.

"You'd still be surrounded by Voldemort and all his followers," said Yellow-Eyes. "What you do from there is entirely up to you."

"You are completely tethered to life while Voldemort lives," said Violet-Eyes, "and you meant to sacrifice your life to save your friends. That means something."

"You could simply tell us 'thanks but no thanks,' and take your chances."

"Sirius would still be dead, though."

"And Remus."

"Tonks. Dumbledore. Fred. Cedric."

"Voldemort won't go down easily. He might take people with him."

"You've made your point," said Harry, his stomach twisting. He looked up from the stone tablets into those three sets of glowing eyes. "So. What's this going to cost me?"

"Your soul," said Orange-Eyes, shrugging eloquently, as if it were of no consequence.

"Not all of it," said Violet-Eyes.

"Just a small piece, really," said Yellow-Eyes.

At that, Dumbledore stepped forward threateningly. He reached out to grab Harry…

… and dissolved into a white cloud of dust motes.

Violet-Eyes lowered his hands.

"What did you do?" said Harry, whirling to face the spot where Dumbledore had been. The dust wasn't dissipating; rather, it was hanging in the air like frozen smoke.

"He's dead, he has no power here," said Yellow-Eyes. "Unlike you. We'll bring him back when he's needed."

Turning back to face them, Harry took a deep, calming breath. "So… a piece of my soul?"

"You'd barely miss it."

"Voldemort got along well enough with just a small bit of his left in his body."

Harry shook his head. "Not a good comparison. He's barely human."

Orange-Eyes rolled his eyes, a highly disturbing visual phenomenon. "Voldemort was pretty screwed up to begin with. You saw his whimsical childhood pursuits of stringing up rabbits by their entrails and using magic to mind-rape orphans, right?"

"Why do you want a bit of my soul, anyway?" asked Harry. The conversation was taking on a surreal air, and it spoke to the trials and tribulations of Harry's life thus far that he was able to keep it together at all.

The three figures glanced at each other for a moment. "Surely," said Orange-Eyes after a moment, "you've experienced enough of the deeper mysteries of magic to understand the value of such a thing?"

"I suppose I have, at that," said Harry. He shifted his shoulders, his mouth suddenly feeling very dry. "So that's the bargain, then? You take a piece of my soul, and then you send me back and give me another shot to save everyone?"

"Oh, no, not at all," said Violet-Eyes. "Don't under-value your soul, Harry. We're prepared to offer a substantial deal-sweetener."

At some pre-arranged signal, the three figures stood as one. Harry had to crane his neck to meet their eyes.

"You'll want to fill that missing bit of soul with something," said Yellow-Eyes. "Fractured souls are dangerous, you know. Highly volatile."

"We are prepared," said Orange-Eyes in a curiously formal tone, "to replace the piece we take with the cobbled-together souls of three of the most powerful wizards to ever walk the earth. A soul-splice, if you will. Each one is but a fraction of the individual's power at their peak, in life – but together, why, when combined with your own already considerable talents, you might stand against Voldemort as an equal. You might well surpass him, once you've worked out the kinks."

"Wouldn't it feel nice to not be the underdog for once?" The other two figures leaned in, looming over Harry.

"Turnabout is fair play, if you ask me."

"You want to… put a bit of someone else inside me?" said Harry skeptically. "Three someones?"

"You'd be in complete control, of course," said Orange-Eyes. "You'd call the shots. It's your body, your mind. You'd simply have access to a portion of their souls – their knowledge, their abilities, their tactics, their thoughts and feelings."

"Well…" said Harry. He was off-balance, he needed time. "Tell me about them, then. The three bits of soul you're offering."

It was the signal they'd been waiting for, apparently. Each figure reached back behind the massive chairs and came out with a long, rolled-up parchment of considerable size.

"Let's meet our contestants, shall we?" said Orange-Eyes.

Violet-Eyes unfurled his parchment. It was an oversized photo, but a wizard one. The woman in the photo paced back and forth, her expression dark and deadly. She would ordinarily be quite striking, with dark, luxurious hair, tanned, smooth skin, and high cheekbones, but Harry's attention was pulled away from her features by the severed head in her hand.

"This is Sentenza, a Dark witch of Italian descent whose name has been struck from the rolls of history. She was famous for her curses of vengeance and retribution. Her story is a sad one: sold like cattle by her father, her lord husband treated her quite poorly. After years of seclusion and study, she rose to terrorize the country, righting wrongs wherever she perceived them with a shocking degree of ruthlessness. Her motto was _they deserved it_. She was universally feared for over a decade." Violet-Eyes withdrew his hand, but the picture of Sentenza hung in the air unsupported.

Yellow-Eyes went next, repeating the unfurling motion. This time, the portrait was of a broad-shouldered man with a neatly trimmed beard of deep auburn. He had a square jaw, classically Roman features, blue eyes, and a feral grin.

"You'll have heard of him, if you managed to stay awake in your History class. Emeric the Evil – highly aggressive and destructive. Only held on to the Elder Wand for a year, but boy, what a year. His spells gave new meaning to the word 'overkill.' He didn't have much of a political agenda, except that he seemed to be very pro-fire. One of the first truly infamous wizards – you don't get a moniker like "the Evil" without cutting a truly devastating swath through a few hundred villages." Having said his piece, Yellow-Eyes withdrew and left the portrait hanging in the air.

The third portrait snapped down, and Orange-Eyes stepped forward to look down at Harry from over the top of it. Harry's gaze was drawn to the man in the picture, who reminded him a bit of the photo of Sirius incarcerated in Azkaban, if Sirius had been twenty years older and completely out of his mind. The man was _howling_, his long, stringy hair flipping about wildly as the man looked left, right, behind him, all around every few seconds.

"Magnus Ekrizdis," said Orange-Eyes. "The wizard who built Azkaban. A prideful, arrogant man who happened to be a master of compulsion, mind magic, disguise, subterfuge, and concealment. Also, quite possibly insane. He made a habit of luring passing Muggle ships to the island, then torturing the crew and using them as test subjects. After Ekrizdis died, and the Concealment Charms around the island dropped, the Ministry of Magic sent investigators. The records of what they found there are sealed in the darkest depths of the Department of Mysteries."

"And you want to put a bit of those nutters in my head?" said Harry. He looked between the three portraits, shuddering.

"We're _offering _to splice a bit of them into your soul, not your head," said Orange-Eyes.

"What's the difference?" asked Harry.

"Permanence. This is no temporary possession, no insubstantial shadow from beyond the grave whispering in your ear. These are portions of three very real souls. They'll be a part of you. Distinct, and very much _not _in the driver's seat, but a part of you nonetheless."

"I see," said Harry. He took a moment to process, and then another for good measure. As he mused, the three figures flicked their wrists, the parchments rolling up with an audible snap. They sat once more, gazing at Harry over the white stone counter.

"And if I want you to send me back without the soul-splice?" asked Harry. "I'd still have my memories, right? I'd know what was going to happen, and I could do it right this time…"

"Then you'll have a fractured soul," said Purple-Eyes. "We'll take our payment and you'll have nothing to replace it with."

"And your future knowledge will be worthless the moment you do anything you didn't do before," said Yellow-Eyes. "Haven't you ever heard of the Butterfly Effect?"

"You'll also be giving up a massive advantage. Talented though you may be, you'd need fifty years of intense work to match Voldemort," said Orange-Eyes. "Unless you accept our offer, that is."

Still, Harry hesitated. He looked down at the stone tablets again.

_Can I live with myself if I go back to the Forest, even if I beat Voldemort, knowing that I had the chance to save them and I didn't take it?_

He looked up.

_No._

"Excellent," said Orange-Eyes, reading Harry's expression – or, more disturbingly, his mind. "And the time you wish to return to?"

Harry looked down the line of tablets again, considering. "I suppose I could go back to the beginning," he thought out loud, looking at the first tablet, the one with the image of the mirror engraved on it. "I could beat Quirrell, and then stop Malfoy from giving Ginny the diary… I could spare her that torment, at least." He shook his head. "No, I'd change too much without even knowing it. I'd have no way of knowing what Voldemort would do next." He moved his hand over the other tablets, one by one. "I suppose I have to ask myself, where did it all go wrong? What was the moment when I could have really made a difference, if only I'd known then what I know now?"

His hand stopped in the middle of the row.

"This would take me to the graveyard in Little Hangleton, wouldn't it?"

"Yes," said Orange-Eyes.

"When, exactly?" pressed Harry.

"The moment the Portkey dropped you there," said Orange-Eyes. He anticipated Harry's next question. "In time to save Cedric Diggory, if you're quick."

Harry took a deep breath. "That one, then."

"Excellent choice," said Orange-Eyes brusquely. He waved his hands and the tablets on either side of the middle one disappeared. "The Goldilocks option. Not too far, and not too near."

With another disconcertingly synchronous movement, the three figures reached behind their chairs again, then reached forward and set three objects on the counter next to the remaining stone tablet.

A black, dangerous-looking quill. A single piece of parchment. A silver dagger.

"You'll need to sign here," said Violet-Eyes, indicating the parchment. "In blood, I'm afraid. Highly cliché, I know, but we do have our image to think about…"

"When you've signed and you're ready to proceed, use the dagger and dribble a bit of your blood on the tablet," said Yellow-Eyes. "We'll do the rest."

Harry reached out and slid the parchment towards himself. It took him less than half a minute to read it. It was a simple, plain-English delineation of their offer: a portion of Harry's soul, for a trip back in time and a soul-splice.

Harry looked up. "No complicated legalese? No trick clauses or text that gets so small it fades into nothingness at the bottom of the page?"

Orange-Eyes laughed, the sound booming through the large, open room. He spread his hands in a gesture of openness. "We have no reason to deceive you, Harry. Why would we try to trick you, when we can get what we want by playing it straight?"

Violet-Eyes waved his hand, and the cloud of frozen smoke by Harry's side started to coalesce. "This would be your chance to weigh in, Dumbledore." Albus shimmered back into solidity and blinked, wavering on his feet for a moment. "I would say you were here to be a devil's advocate, but that would be in exceedingly poor taste. You're here to advise. For better or worse, you have had a profound effect on the shape of this man's life." Violet-Eyes gestured to Harry. "He's made his choice, but you're free to give your input at this time."

Dumbledore turned to Harry, who had picked up the quill and was toying with it, spinning it idly in his fingers as he stared at the parchment in front of him.

"Harry," said Dumbledore, very quietly, very seriously. "Listen to me now. Do not do this thing. Do not undo all the good you've done, the good you could still yet achieve. If you go back to the Forest, I believe you will achieve victory. A victory that cost lives, yes, but there can be no perfection in war. Victory is merely the lesser sadness, Harry."

Harry blinked. Once, twice, three times. He held the quill steady. He didn't look at Dumbledore. When he spoke, his voice was level and calm.

"If you didn't want me to be the kind of person who'd sacrifice a part of himself to save others, maybe you should have taught me different lessons."

Harry put quill to parchment and scrawled his name. The back of his hand flared with pain, and he saw his own name carved out in his flesh for a second before the wound closed.

"Whenever you're ready, Mr. Potter," murmured Orange-Eyes.

He finally looked over his shoulder. Dumbledore was looking at him with the most intense expression of sadness and grief Harry had ever seen.

Harry looked down, took up the silver knife, and used it to draw a line on his palm. He held it out over the stone tablet.

"Harry." Dumbledore's voice quavered. "If you do this, you can never come back from it."

Harry didn't look back. He just smiled, wry and brittle. "Don't be silly, Albus. You were the one who taught me about second chances."

He made a fist, squeezed, and a drop of blood slipped through his fingers, falling onto the stone. The moment it splattered against the grey tablet, the etched outline of the gravestone flared with light. White, blinding.

The world spun and dissolved into light.

* * *

The world was a howl of wind and swirling color. Harry's mind spun. He tried to sort himself out and failed miserably.

His feet hit the ground with a thud and he tipped over, going to his hands and knees. His senses were assaulted with the normalcy of the world. Everything that had been missing in his… vision… was oh-so visceral here. The grass felt wet under his palms. He took a deep breath and the misty, damp air of the graveyard filled his lungs. He heard insects chirping in the background, and at his side, an intake of breath.

"Harry, where are we?"

Inside his mind, Harry reeled. He was himself. He could think clearly. Yet, as he thought, he was not without company.

_Find the rat Animagus / Make him suffer / Make his suffering exquisite_

Harry clutched his hands to his head and toppled over, awkwardly rolling onto his side. _Too much, too fast_, he thought. He felt like he was drowning, the water quickly rising above his head.

A pair of hands rolled him onto his back.

"Harry? Are you all right?" Cedric's face, creased with worry, looked down on him. It made his situation startlingly, starkly real.

"Cup…" murmured Harry, still clutching his head. "Grab it."

"Is this part of the Tournament? Did anyone tell _you_ the cup was a Portkey?"

"No time," said Harry. He forced himself to his knees, swaying in place. His thoughts were a thousand razor-sharp shards of glass.

_Send away the useless one / Seize control of his mind / His words are meaningless_

Harry reached into his robes – they were battered, torn from his encounters in the hedge maze – and pulled out his wand. He flicked it, barely paying attention to the motion, and caught the Cup in a nonverbal Hover Charm. With a thought, he banished it into Cedric's chest.

Cedric had just enough time to grunt in surprise and pain as the Cup slammed into him before he disappeared.

Harry knelt there, panting. He tried to sort through the overwhelming torrent of information flowing through his mind. He was in control of his actions, he knew himself, he was not lost. In fact, he felt…powerful. Three lifetimes of arcane magic, crackling at his fingertips. If only he could put the new pieces of himself into some kind of useful order…

A figure approached, shuffling through the rows of gravestones, carrying something in its arms.

Harry's scar exploded with pain. It didn't seem to hurt as much this time around – compared to what he'd gone through in the Ministry atrium, it was a mere punch to the gut – but it was enough to disrupt his tenuous grasp on his own mind. Reeling, he shuffled through his discordant new self for a defense. Ekrizdis's mastery of Occlumency came to mind, and as quick as he could think of it, the knowledge was Harry's.

It didn't help. The pain from Harry's scar assaulted him like his newfound Occlumency wasn't even there. It was frustrating, tortuous, _unfair_ that whatever link he shared with Voldemort had such unfettered access to his mind.

_This must be rectified / Weakness is unacceptable / Eliminate your flaws_

The pain was debilitating. Harry watched the scene unfold before him like he was seeing it through murky water. Pettigrew dragged him to the marble headstone, tied him to it with conjured rope, and stuffed a length of some black material in his mouth as a gag.

Time seemed to pass in flickers. Pettigrew hurried away, then reappeared in Harry's field of vision dragging the gigantic stone cauldron that would soon give rise to Voldemort's new body. Harry could barely pay attention. It was a race against the clock. He had to master himself before Voldemort released him.

Harry watched with a small part of his attention as Pettigrew performed the ritual, slicing off his hand, as Voldemort rose from the cauldron and called his followers, as the Death Eaters appeared among the gravestones and formed a loose circle.

Voldemort started monologuing. _Bad habit, that_, thought Harry absently, still furiously sifting through his mind and stuffing the new bits into some kind of practical arrangement. He felt giddy, almost. Spells of unimaginable power, techniques that a mere handful of living wizards knew, rituals that would make Torquemada blanch – all of it there, like it was sitting on a buffet table within easy reach.

A flash of light caught his eye. Voldemort's wand swished through the air, a silver ribbon attaching itself to Pettigrew's stump of an arm. _Won't be long, now._ Soon, Harry would be free to act.

_Murder the Animagus first / Curse the betrayer of your parents with unimaginable pain / Reanimate his corpse and let it feast on the rest of them_

Harry felt himself grow anxious as Voldemort approached, still speaking at length to the Death Eaters. It was partly the man's presence – even with Harry's newfound knowledge, Voldemort was still, well, _Voldemort_ – but it was mostly his own fear that he wouldn't be ready in time. His head throbbed, and he felt a ringing, buzzing noise in his ears.

He barely felt it when Voldemort's finger prodded his cheek, sending white-hot pain lancing through his head. Voldemort moved off, pacing around the circle, explaining his grand scheme, how he'd succeeded in resurrecting himself. Harry did feel it when Voldemort hit him with a _Crucio_, but it served mostly as a reminder that his time had run out.

Voldemort stood directly in front of him. "Now untie him, Wormtail, and give him back his wand."

_Make him pay for his arrogance / Make them _all _pay / Burn their bodies and desecrate their ashes_

Pettigrew approached Harry nervously and used his new silver hand to cut through the ropes with ease. Harry spat out the gag and held out his hand, keeping his expression blank. A murmur ran through the circle of Death Eaters, who closed ranks around the gravestone. Pettigrew didn't look at him, he just reached into his robes and pulled out Harry's wand, slapping it into his hand before scuttling off to join the circle.

Harry closed his fingers around his wand. It felt… good.

_Feels like vengeance / Feels like power / Feels like victory_

"You have been taught to duel, Harry Potter?" said Voldemort, his sibilant voice dripping with amusement and confidence.

"I have," said Harry. He kept himself still, quiet, calm. Inside, he thought he might vibrate out of existence with anticipation.

"We bow to each other, Harry," said Voldemort. His red eyes glinted with dark mirth as he inclined his head briefly. "Come, the niceties must be observed…"

The Death Eaters started laughing. Harry was watching for it – there was a moment when Voldemort's attention flickered to the circle, playing to the audience a bit.

"… Dumbledore would like you to show – "

In the middle of the sentence, Harry spun in place and Apparated.

With a whisper of air, he appeared behind one of the Death Eaters. He brushed his wand against the back of the man's neck. There was a flash of green light, and the man crumpled. Harry Summoned the man's wand, and it hit his palm before the man hit the ground.

Ignoring the startled cries and yells that rose from the men around him, Harry swept his wand in a wide arc in front of him. "_Incendium_."

Iridescent fire belched forth from his wand, spewing out in a liquid torrent of flame that rolled over the mass of Death Eaters in his immediate vicinity like a wave. The Conflagration Curse was one of Emeric's inventions, meant to closely imitate the enchanted flame of a dragon.

As Harry watched men scream as they went up like torches, their skin sloughing off in sheets, he thought that description was fairly accurate.

With an adroit motion, he swapped his holly wand for the one he'd just captured as he strode forward, facing Voldemort.

"I'm sorry, you were saying?"

Snarling wordlessly, Voldemort threw a Killing Curse at him, impossibly fast. _Well, at least he's not fucking around this time_. An almost imperceptible flick of Harry's wand Summoned a nearby gravestone into the path of the green light. Harry was already moving, his counterstroke one of Sentenza's favorites. The ground around Voldemort erupted in pillars of dirt, which crumbled away to reveal grasping, corpselike arms. The arms bent, the rotting hands at the end of them formed into claws, grasping, seeking.

Voldemort spun to Apparate, but a hand clutched his foot, and he stumbled.

_Voldemort stumbled_.

Harry felt a rush of pure adrenaline and smiled as he stepped forward again, leveling the wand as his nemesis. Harry's sense of victory was short-lived – Voldemort's wand flicked down, and a purple pulse of light disintegrated the arms and blew Harry back twenty feet.

_Stupid / Foolish / Should have done better_

Harry clipped the top of the marble headstone and tumbled to the ground. The Death Eaters were in total disarray; the ones uninjured by the fire were moving back hurriedly. Some of them had their wands out, stepping forward to flank Harry.

"Do nothing!" Voldemort's shriek stopped them in their tracks. "He is mine!"

Pushing himself to his feet, Harry caught his breath. He grinned as he saw a flicker of sinuous motion, low to the ground amongst the gravestones. He pointed his wand. _Accio Nagini_.

Voldemort's snake hurled through the air towards him. Harry aimed carefully…

Nagini changed direction abruptly, slowed, and then came to a stop. With a flash of light, the snake was encased in a shimmering, translucent bubble. Voldemort stepped into view, his wand aimed high in the air, his focus on the snake.

Recognizing the bubble as a very Dark, very creative permutation of the Shield Charm, Harry was impressed despite himself.

_Useful magic / It should be ours / We'll pull the spell from his shattered mind after we break him_

He thrust his wand at Nagini like he was striking with a sword. _Divulsa_.

Voldemort twirled his wand and the bubble shifted to a darker, less translucent material. Harry's Shattering Hex struck, to no effect, and he growled in frustration. _Fine. You want to play this game? Let's play_.

Flickering between bits of arcane knowledge as fast as he could think, Harry started firing off the quickest, nastiest spells his three companions could provide, alternating targets between Voldemort and Nagini.

It was working. Voldemort was pressed into defense alone, his wand a blur of motion as he blocked spell after spell, unable to counterattack. Harry felt a rush of intuition and whipped his wand forward. _Exsolvo_ _Horribilis_.

_Gambit / Trick / Curveball_

Harry's next spell came a half-second faster, and he shot the sickly, yellow orb _between _Voldemort and the snake. It exploded into a multitude of globules. Voldemort jabbed his wand, Vanishing the ones that flew at him, but several of them struck Nagini's cage. They immediately started eating away at the shimmering shield, cracks and hissing bubbles forming on the translucent surface.

Harry flicked his wand again.

Voldemort's eyes widened as he grasped the situation. Nagini's crumbling cage, the glowing circle of crackling fire waiting on the ground below, and Harry, standing with his wand leveled at Voldemort, ready to intercept any attempt at rescue.

"No!" yelled Voldemort.

_Yes / Yes / Yes_

"Yes," said Harry.

The cage cracked open; the snake dropped. Voldemort spun in place, Disapparating, appearing in midair in the next instant. He caught Nagini in one pale, spindly hand, then twisted in midair, shooting Harry a look of pure hatred as he vanished.

The graveyard was quiet for a few moments. Harry looked around, slowly, over the tip of his wand. A few Death Eaters had slunk away somewhere in the chaos, and a handful of them were dead on the ground and still burning, but of the thirty or so who'd shown up, there were still at least twenty of them standing around Harry in a loose circle.

_Burn them alive / Hunt down their families / Enslave their minds and make them serve you_

"Now you're all in so much trouble," said Harry, his voice raspy from the smoke coming off the burning bodies.

A few of them Apparated away immediately. The stupid ones hesitated. The _very _stupid ones stepped forward and yelled Killing Curses.

Harry spun, Apparating a hundred feet away to a little hillock near the chapel. It gave him an excellent line of sight down to the congregated mass of Death Eaters. He held his wand aloft – no time to be subtle about it – and roared, "_Procursus Adestrum!_"

A brilliant light shone in the sky; the Death Eaters shaded their eyes with their hands, looking up just in time to see death raining down on them. Streaks of violet light lanced down like lightning, exploding into shards of starlight that arced from person to person, incinerating them where they stood. Screams drifted up to where Harry stood on the little hill.

A masked Death Eater popped into being a few paces away from Harry. The man was already bringing his wand down. "_Diffindo!_"

Harry twisted away from the spell, but it caught him in the leg, biting deeply into his thigh, and he felt hot blood seep into his robes.

_He insults us gravely / His spell is a pale imitation / Let's show him what it _really _looks like_

"_Divulsa!_" snarled Harry. The silver arc of light took the Death Eater in the stomach, severing him in two.

Limping, Harry strode down the hill. He was fairly pleased with the fruits of his labors. He counted the remains of at least fifteen Death Eaters. The rest had probably Apparated out in time, but cutting Voldemort's numbers in half wasn't bad for a night's work.

A groan of pain caught his attention.

_One of them lives / Not for long / Torture him for information first_

Harry walked over the smoking ground and prodded a body with his foot. He gave the man a swift kick in the ribs, and the man tried to curl into a ball.

"Well, you're alive, then. Who are you?"

"You… how did you…"

"_That's _what you're worried about right now? Not the fact that you're going to be dead in fifteen seconds?"

With a negligent flick of his wand, Harry Banished the man's mask, and it went spinning off into the darkness. The bloodstained face of Walden Macnair looked up at him, grimacing in pain.

"I won't… I won't tell…" Macnair's voice was faint, but he managed a sneer.

"Yeah, don't bother," said Harry. _Legilimens_, he thought.

It was a heady experience; he had very fine control. He wandered and skipped through the man's memories, flinching with distaste at some of Macnair's… predilections. Harry's expression grew darker as he roamed further back, to Voldemort's heyday.

_Punish him for his misdeeds / Rip his eyeballs from their sockets / Strangle him with his own intestines_

"I've got a better idea," said Harry. The man knew nothing Harry didn't already know about Voldemort. He was useless. Harry pointed his wand at the man's mouth. _Densolvo_.

The man's abrupt scream turned into a gurgle as he started to choke on the milky liquid of his dissolved teeth.

Harry watched him for a moment, then his gaze wandered up. He looked around. The graveyard looked like a war zone. Harry had things to do. He had to get back to Hogwarts. Cedric… he'd have said… something. Strangely, Harry couldn't really wrap his head around what that something would be. He felt strangely disconnected from his memories of what Cedric was like. In any case, he'd have to alert Dumbledore that Voldemort was back. And Sirius… had Pettigrew been killed, or had he been one of the ones to escape? One easy way to find out.

"_Accio silver hand!_" called Harry, sweeping his wand back and forth over the battlefield. After a moment, he dropped his wand. A twitching, spastic motion at his feet brought him out of his reverie. Ah. Macnair was dead.

_So much yet to do / So much within our grasp / Much work to be done_

Harry turned on the spot and Apparated.

He appeared in midair, five thousand feet above Hogwarts. He closed his eyes and savored the rush of freefall. Only one of his three companions had been an Animagus, but Sentenza had had a particularly useful form. He shifted, felt himself compress.

A raven winged its way down towards the castle in a slow, descending spiral.

Cedric Diggory was alive.

_One down_… thought Harry. The castle loomed large, and Harry's avian eyes could pick out the milling crowds near the hedge maze. _I wonder what Ron and Hermione are going to think_…

For the first time since he'd gotten back, Harry felt a shudder of unease.

* * *

**Author's note: This was an idea I had that was pretty much a bolt from the blue. I've never been a big fan of stories where Harry is sent back in time by helpful spirits, usually with a stern lecture about how he's _really _supposed to love Girl X and a nice pack of upgrades (Occlumency, no horcrux, unlocked "magical core," etc.), all without any real downside. **

**This story is peripherally a "take that" to those types of stories, but it's mostly a "getting super!Harry out of my system" story.**

**The "three figures" with orange/yellow/violet eyes who offer Harry the bargain are _heavily _inspired, one might say to the point where this could be considered a crossover, by the Lower Planes beings Lee, Nero, and Cedrik from _The Order of the Stick_'s 'Dark Vaarsuvius' storyline. The summary is from the same source - they're the first few things the soul-spliced sorcerers say to ****Vaarsuvius. They seemed oddly appropriate.  
**

**Updates will be sporadic; unlike _What You Leave Behind_, where I try to write on a schedule, this is very much a "write whenever I damn well feel like it" story.**


	2. Chapter 2: Don't Forget, I Knew You When

**Chapter 2 – Don't Forget, I Knew You When**

Harry decided that he liked being a raven.

To begin with, his senses were excellent. He had near-perfect vision, and he could focus and flick between objects at dizzying speeds. He had no trouble taking in the scene in front of him: the great stands of spectators, made up of mostly Hogwarts students – there were Cedric's friends and classmates in the Hufflepuff section, standing and screaming madly as they unfurled a giant DIGGORY WINS banner in sparkling gold and black. The rest of the crowd wasn't quite as enthusiastic, but was by no means subdued. The Beauxbatons and Durmstrang students were mingling, chatting, and cheering – all in all, it seemed to be shaping up to be a roaring party.

Certainly the best thing about being a raven, though, was that nobody looked at him. Harry perched on the outskirts of the hedge maze, and though students and a few professors milled about near him – Professor Sprout actually came directly underneath him, having an animated conversation with Professor Vector about the fine details of the plants making up the hedge – no one spared him a second glance. He was, for all intents and purposes, invisible.

Harry liked that quite a bit. He hadn't known until just that moment how much it wore on him, being stared at constantly. Even after he'd long since stopped noticing it, it had been like a subtle tightness in his skin. Walk into the courtroom – eyes. Walk into the D.A. meeting – eyes. Walk into the Forest and confront Voldemort – eyes.

Of course, just because he went unnoticed by the crowd didn't mean he wasn't being paid attention to.

_Cease this pointless wool-gathering / Find the imposter and roast him on a spit fashioned from his ribcage / Leave this place and its shrieking children_

The voices in his head were becoming more distinct. Harry felt oddly calm about it. It seemed like the kind of thing he should be worrying about. For whatever reason, though, he could distinguish them a little better. Sentenza, single-minded and vengeful. Emeric, fire-crazed and gloriously wanton. And, last but certainly not less insane, Ekrizdis, cold, cruel, and calculating.

Harry looked out at the crowd again and perceived that all was not well. There was an eye in the storm of celebration: near the judges' table, Dumbledore stood with Snape and McGonagall and Cedric, who was talking animatedly.

_That… could be a problem_, thought Harry. It was good to think his own thoughts and hear them clearly. It centered him, in a way.

Another potential problem wandered into view. 'Alastor Moody' was prowling the edge of the crowd, looking gnarled and surly, but Harry could see through his disguise to Barty Crouch's nervousness.

Harry took a few crow-hops forward, precariously close to the edge, as his own nerves manifested themselves. Fighting Voldemort and his Death Eaters hadn't been easy, but at least it was straightforward. This was different, and Harry was starting to appreciate the difficulties of time travel. What would Crouch do now? Presumably, he had some sort of plan. Harry wasn't supposed to come back from the graveyard, and as far as anyone knew, he hadn't. Would Crouch maintain his cover? Would he try to assassinate Karkaroff or Dumbledore or some other target of opportunity? Would he simply slink away and gleefully return to his master's side?

As Harry pondered, the object of his consternation started moving with purpose; Dumbledore had waved him over. Crouch stood at Dumbledore's side as Cedric spoke a few words, gesturing to the Triwizard Cup. And then Snape, McGonagall, and Crouch fanned out, moving towards the hedge maze.

How was he going to expose Crouch? Harry couldn't simply ignore him. He had to be dealt with, now. But how to get to him reveal himself? Trying to manufacture a scenario somewhat like the last time around seemed too risky, and Harry didn't have much time – Crouch was heading Harry's way, taking his first steps into the maze, his wand held straight and ready, as Snape and McGonagall skirted the edges of the maze, stopping at intervals to cast detection spells.

And then, just like that, it clicked. This wasn't a problem at all. It was an opportunity.

Harry waited until Crouch was a few dozen yards into the maze, then hopped off the edge and flew down behind him.

Crouch had obviously become adept at using Moody's magical eye – by the time Harry had transformed back into a human, he was already whirling around.

"Potter!" Crouch's face looked unnatural, gaping like that – an expression the real Alastor Moody rarely wore. "How did you – ?"

Another difference between them: Moody would never have wasted his first move on mere words. Harry certainly didn't, which meant that he had already won.

With a fluid move executed in less than a second, Harry struck, firing off nonverbal spells so quickly they blended into each other. _ConfundoObliviateImperio._ Then, almost an afterthought: _Legilimens_.

Crouch reeled, taking an instinctive step back before rocking on his feet, back and forth, in a kind of befuddled daze.

"I don't know why I didn't think of this earlier," said Harry. "Turnabout is fair play, after all." With a mental nudge, he directed Crouch out of the maze. He could feel the man struggling against the curse, but with Harry's own implacable will combined with three centuries of Dark knowledge and understanding, Crouch might as well have been a mouse scrabbling at a concrete wall.

There was also the fact that Crouch had a less-than-firm handle on his will at the moment – he wasn't exactly stable to begin with, and a double shot of _Confundo _and _Obliviate _had him tumbling down the steep end of the sanity bell curve.

Harry took a few steps back into a dark corner of the maze just in case someone wandered in, then devoted most of his attention to directing his puppet. He had Crouch wade into the crowd of revelers, then stand stock-still, wand out, and cast a Summoner. With Crouch's knowledge flowing through him, he directed the man's will to a particular spot on the edge of the Forbidden Forest.

The timing on this was going to be tricky. He deliberately under-powered the spell. Crouch was standing in the middle of the crowd, wand out and devoid of expression, and he was starting to attract a few stares.

The small, dirty bone flew in an arc and hit the ground a few paces in front of Crouch. No one paid much attention to it until Harry directed Crouch to start untransfiguring it back into the body of his dead father. Barty Crouch Sr. had been spared decomposition by the transfiguration, and he didn't have a mark on him, but Harry heard an uneasy murmur run through the crowd all the same.

Harry didn't even realize a crooked grin had slipped onto his face. _Let's see how they like this one._

With a mental shove, Harry marched Crouch through the crowd towards the Ministry officials gathered near the judges' table. He timed it so that Crouch's Polyjuice started to wear off as he walked. That brought a few strangled gasps from some of the adults still in the bleachers. _Wait for it… wait for it…_

_Now / Sow chaos and destruction / Bend the crowd to your will_

Crouch tapped his throat and muttered a quick _Sonorus_. "THE DARK LORD HAS RETURNED!" yelled Crouch. "THE MINISTRY WILL FALL! _MORSMORDRE!_"

The Dark Mark flew into the air, green and glittering and made of tiny, flickering stars. It rose higher until it dominated the sky, a green, menacing haze surrounding it.

_That_ certainly kicked off the screaming.

Harry released the _Imperio_ on Crouch just as the Aurors' Stunners took him in the chest.

Waiting in the maze, listening to the crowd, Harry considered the next phase of his very loose plan. Looking down at his ripped and bloodied clothes, he considered playing up the effect by re-opening the wound in his forearm, but judged his appearance satisfactory. He counted to sixty in his head, stowed his wand, then staggered out of the maze.

He allowed himself to crane his neck and gape at the Dark Mark, freezing in place. Under normal circumstances, Harry wasn't much of an actor, but Sentenza had spent long, brutal years under the heel of a tyrant of a husband – she knew how to wear a mask.

That was how Hermione and Ron found him, just a few seconds later.

"Harry!" Hermione cannoned into him in a rush, her arms wrapping him up and her hair pressing into his face. She was shaking, her small fingers clenching and unclenching against the back of his ragged shirt.

"What happened to you, mate?" said Ron, his eyes wide, as he looked Harry over. Hermione pulled back and gasped as she took in Harry's state, her hands still holding his arms. "Cedric said something about a graveyard," continued Ron, "and no one could find you. And then, Moody… well, not Moody, I guess, and…" he waved helplessly at the sky. "What's going on, Harry?"

Harry looked at his friends, taking a second, the gears of his brain seemingly locked in place. They looked desperately, worryingly _young_. This Hermione hadn't gone through Malfoy Manor. This Ron hadn't fallen to the locket Horcrux and been redeemed in bravery. This was the night when it all started, really. Cedric's death… and yet there was Cedric with his parents, their wands out as they moved to assist the Ministry in controlling the crowd.

It should have been a victory. It didn't feel like one. Harry felt dreadfully, permanently out of place. And worse, as he pondered this feeling, it lacked a certain intensity. He couldn't quite bring himself to care with an appropriate _depth_.

"I took a little trip," said Harry. "But I'm back now."

_Leave these worthless children / Continue to burn a path through your enemies / Ensorcell the fat Minister and make him your pawn_

"Look," said Harry, gently extricating himself from Hermione, "I need to find Dumbledore." He took a deep breath. "I need to tell him… that Voldemort's back." He tried to inject the appropriate amount of gravitas into his voice, and wasn't quite sure he'd succeeded.

Hermione gasped, and Ron looked like someone had slugged him in the gut. "He's… back?" whispered Ron.

"Yeah," said Harry. "The Cup was a Portkey. We ended up in an old graveyard. I got Cedric out of there, but Wormtail came, and he tied me up, and there was some kind of ritual…" he made himself shudder. "Come on, I need to get to Dumbledore."

His friends trailing behind him, Harry pushed through the agitated, buzzing crowd until he saw Headmaster in all his sartorial splendor. He was talking, calmly but rapidly, to a pair of Aurors. Cedric Diggory was standing by Dumbledore's side, and when he saw Harry, he strode up to him.

"Harry, what the _hell?" _said Cedric, scowling at him. His anger faded and was replaced with a look of shock as he took in Harry's bloody clothes. "What happened in that graveyard, Harry?"

It was Dumbledore who commanded Harry's attention, though. The decidedly mixed and confusing feelings he had about his former (current?) Headmaster were shuffled to the side with the grace of a master Occlumens, and he was guileless and young again in his own mind.

"Professor," said Harry, his voice small, "he's back."

Dumbledore nodded gravely. "So I feared, Harry," his gaze moving to the now-dissipating green haze of the Dark Mark.

"Who is that?" said Harry, pointing to the downed form of Crouch, who was currently surrounded by a gaggle of Ministry personnel.

"Someone I thought long dead," said Dumbledore, his expression hard. He waved over Snape, who was lurking near the edge of the maze and glaring at Harry – the chaos of the situation clearly hadn't fazed the man, and it was obvious from his expression that he knew exactly whom to blame.

"Headmaster?" said Snape.

"Severus, I would like you to go to Alastor's office and search it thoroughly. There, I strongly suspect you will find the real Alastor Moody. When you find him, take him to the hospital wing." Snape nodded curtly, and turned to leave, but Dumbledore's voice stopped him in his tracks. "And after that, Severus… I believe you know what must be done."

Snape shuddered very slightly – if Harry hadn't been paying attention, he would have missed it – but he simply jerked his head in an approximation of a nod and strode through the crowd towards the castle.

"As for you, Harry," said Dumbledore, his eyes still following Snape, "I would very much appreciate it if you joined me in my office."

"But – " Ron, looking angry, tried to break in, but Dumbledore rode over him like the gentlest boulder in the world.

"Mister Weasley, Miss Granger, if you would kindly wait in the hospital wing, I daresay Mr. Potter will be along shortly." Dumbledore glanced over at Harry, and seemed to take in his condition for the first time. "He's quite clearly been through an ordeal, and will need your support."

Ron didn't look happy about it, but he let himself be dragged away by Hermione. Cedric moved to go with them, pausing to catch Harry's eye. "I'll be there as well, Harry. I still want that explanation."

"Right," muttered Harry, and then jogged forward to catch up with Dumbledore's surprisingly long strides. As he skirted the crowd, he saw Ron and Hermione join the Weasleys at the bottom of the stands. Arthur and Molly looked worried and grim, Percy stunned, and Ginny… Harry's mind went blank, and passed her over.

The walk to the castle was silent, except for the voices in Harry's head. Leaning hard on his borrowed Occlumency, Harry navigated the corridors of his own thoughts, cutting off troublesome qualms and looming fears. What he couldn't cut off, he channeled into an outward show of a fourteen-year-old version of himself barely holding it together. Dumbledore's presence beside him was a tangle of problems all on its own. Dumbledore could be his greatest asset or his most formidable problem, and there wasn't really any in-between. Every instinct screamed at him to keep quiet, to not let on about the time travel or the soul-splice. But it was _Dumbledore_. He'd understand. He'd have some wisdom for Harry at a time when he desperately needed it.

And yet… when Harry had signed the contract, it had felt like a breaking. A small, quiet part of Harry knew that Dumbledore would forgive much, but he wouldn't forgive that.

"Ah, here we are," said Dumbledore. Harry blinked. Lost in his thoughts, he hadn't even noticed as they'd ascended the staircase to the Headmaster's Office. "I believe there's someone here who will be quite relieved to see you."

The great black dog sitting with its paws crossed and head lolling on the ground in front of the fireplace saw them, bounded to its feet, and transformed into Harry's godfather.

"Harry," said Sirius, his voice strained as he swept forward and caught Harry in a hug. A second later, Sirius pulled back with a worried expression on his face, like he'd overstepped his bounds.

"I'm fine, Sirius," said Harry. He braced himself, anticipating shock, joy, regret, and guilt. Strangely, his emotions barely spiked, rocking under his Occlumency like a boat bobbing in a gentle ocean swell.

There was Sirius, in front of him, alive, and Harry couldn't quite work out how he felt about it. And that was worrying, because it should be easy. Harry just froze, his gears turning, until he was snapped out of it.

"As unpleasant as it may be, Harry," said Dumbledore quietly, "I must ask you to tell us exactly what led to Lord Voldemort's return."

Harry was spared trying to react naturally to that question as Sirius rounded on Dumbledore. "He's been through enough, Albus. He can tell us tomorrow after he's been patched up and had a good night's rest."

"No, it's fine," said Harry, stepping forward. Ah, there it was – that rush of emotion. Curiously, it was _gratitude_. Seeing Sirius leap to his defense like that – Harry had been too out of it the first time around, but it was blindingly clear at this moment just how _hard _Sirius was trying to be a good godfather. Harry felt an almost nostalgic twinge for the man.

"Thank you, Harry. I know it must be difficult, but the details of Voldemort's return are essential," said Dumbledore.

"Yeah, I get it," said Harry. He inclined his head to the cabinet behind the Headmaster's desk. "If you don't mind, though, I'd like to use the Pensieve. It would be easier to just show you, I think."

"Of course, Harry." Dumbledore drew his wand, flicked it, and the cabinet doors opened with a click. The stone bowl floated out and alighted gently on the Headmaster's desk.

Harry moved forward and put his wand to his temple. Dumbledore glanced at Harry over his half-moon glasses, his electric blue eyes piercing. "I see you're familiar with the process of extracting a memory." He smiled. "Should I be concerned at yet another dubious extra-curricular activity?"

Mentally kicking himself, Harry dug deep and pulled out a flustered grin. "How did you – I mean, I wasn't going to…" he scrubbed a hand through his hair. "I did some research. I was going to get one this summer, and ask Sirius for some, you know… of my mum and dad." He hung his head briefly.

He looked up, and the voices in his head purred at a successful maneuver. Dumbledore's grin had slipped off his face, and Sirius looked stricken. Harry felt like he'd just kicked a puppy.

"I quite understand," said Dumbledore quietly. He waved Harry forward.

With his wand to his temple, Harry concentrated on his memories of the graveyard… the _first _time around. He started with the memory of Peter tying him to the gravestone – thankfully, he'd dragged Harry a fair distance and Cedric's body was out of sight – and ended it just as he's started forcing the beads of golden light back toward Voldemort's wand as the two of them hung suspended in the air.

"That's… that's about everything," said Harry, stepping back.

Nodding gravely, Dumbledore tipped himself into the Pensieve, the motion surprisingly graceful for an old man. Sirius gripped Harry's shoulder wordlessly, then followed after the Headmaster.

The office was silent for a few moments. Harry turned to the phoenix who was eyeing him warily from his perch near the windowsill.

"Don't give me that looks, Fawkes."

Fawkes just stared at him.

"This'll work out. You'll see."

No reaction.

Harry crossed his arms. "Fine, be that way."

He lapsed into silence.

_The hour grows long / Do not let your quarry rest / You waste your time on words_

And Harry did something he hadn't quite been able to bring himself to do before: he addressed the voices in his head directly.

_Shut up, I'm trying to think._

And, wonder of wonders, they did.

A few minutes later, Dumbledore and Sirius emerged from the Pensieve, the former looking grave and the latter looking murderous. Sirius moved to Harry's side, his eyes locked on the wound on Harry's arm.

"That bastard. I'm sorry you had to go through that."

"It's fine, Sirius."

"It's _not_ fine, Harry."

"I take it," interrupted Dumbledore, "that you succeeded in forcing your will upon Voldemort's during the _Priori Incantatem?_"

"Yes," said Harry. "Voldemort's wand started acting funny. Screaming, I thought. And then…"

"And then some apparition of Voldemort's most recent victims appeared," said Dumbledore softly. "Whomever he killed to facilitate this plan, perhaps. And then…"

"My mum and dad, yeah. I… I didn't want to show you that part. They talked to me. The ghosts… spirits, whatever… they talked to me a little. It was kind of personal." Harry kept his eyes on the carpet.

Sirius's hand found his shoulder and squeezed it, hard.

"A most trying experience," said Dumbledore calmly. Harry looked up and met his eyes. The Headmaster had sat down and had his hands steepled on the desk. "But, tell me, Harry – how did you escape the graveyard? You'd already – quite selflessly, I might add – used the Portkey to save young Mr. Diggory."

Harry grinned sheepishly. "Ah, well, as to that… I guess you were bound to find out anyway."

And with that, he folded in on himself and transformed into a raven.

Sirius let out a surprised squawk, and even Dumbledore's eyebrows were climbing his forehead. Harry crow-hopped forward and cawed at Fawkes, who rustled his feathers and turned away haughtily. After a few seconds, Harry turned back into himself.

"That was… unexpected, Harry," murmured Dumbledore. "I find myself quite at a loss for words." He turned to Sirius, who was looking at Harry like he'd grown an extra arm. "I take it from your expression, Sirius, that you had nothing to do with this?"

"Nothing," said Sirius, still looking at Harry. "Harry… please tell me you were careful. There are a lot of ways you can permanently screw yourself up if you make a mistake."

"But I didn't," said Harry. "I read the right books, I did the right exercises, and I went slow."

"It took your dad and I years to pull it off," said Sirius. "You did it in one. I wouldn't call that going slow."

"You two weren't slowed down a little by Peter?" asked Harry quietly.

The name had the intended effect, and Sirius's face twisted into a mask of regret and anger. "I suppose we were," he said in the same tone. "You could have asked me for help, you know. I'd have given it to you."

"I know, Sirius," said Harry. "I just… if I learned anything from last year, it was that the only way you can really keep a secret is to tell absolutely no one. Ron and Hermione don't even know."

Lies upon lies upon half-truths. Harry knew he was playing a dangerous game, and the small solace he took was that even if he were suspected of something, no one could guess the impossible truth in a million years.

"Even still," said Sirius, looking away, "you could have trusted me."

"Maybe I could have," said Harry, the regret in his voice not feigned at all. He stepped forward and hugged his godfather. "It's good to see you again, Sirius."

"And you, Harry," said Sirius.

And for just a second, the pieces fit together and Harry knew that it was worth it. Whatever the cost, whatever the price. If he could keep Sirius alive, keep Fred and Tonks and Remus alive, keep the countless families together who'd been torn asunder by Voldemort's mad bid for power… if he could stop Voldemort before he started…

What was a bit of one's soul, compared to that?

"It has been a trying evening for you, Harry," said Dumbledore. "You've displayed courage and perseverance well beyond what most adult wizards aspire to. I find myself hardly able to express how proud I am of you. You faced a great evil and stood your ground. No one could ask for more."

"Thank you," said Harry, his voice thick with some restrained emotion he couldn't name. "More than anything, though, I just want a good night's sleep."

"An understandable sentiment, Harry," said Dumbledore. "Please, avail yourself of Madam Pomfrey's excellent care. I suspect your friends will be quite relieved to see you as well."

Harry nodded gratefully and made for the door. As he stepped onto the moving staircase, he caught the beginning of a conversation.

"As for the two of us, Sirius, I'm afraid we have a long night ahead of us."

"The Order?"

"Time is of the essence. I'll need your help contacting the appropriate people. And we'll need to see if we can question Mr. Crouch. Tell me, Sirius, everything you remember of his brief time in Azkaban…"

Harry relaxed as the voices faded and the stairway descended. He had a brief moment of respite, walking alone to the hospital wing, where he wouldn't have to pretend to be a different version of himself. He didn't see anyone as he walked – Hogwarts was eerily quiet, the only noise the faint sounds of celebration from the grounds below.

The voices in his head were quiet, too. Patient, waiting.

His friends were, predictably enough, waiting for him. As he entered the hospital wing, Hermione and Ron – deep in conversation with Cedric – looked up from their commandeered bed. Across the room, the pale, sickly form of Alastor Moody lay unconscious, being tended to by Pomfrey.

The matron barely looked up from her patient. "I'll be with you in a moment, Mr. Potter. Professor Moody is severely malnourished and needs help right away."

Harry grunted in acknowledgement and plopped himself down next to his friends.

"Harry," said Hermione, keeping her voice low enough that it wouldn't carry across the room, "Cedric told us what happened in the maze."

"Yeah, what were you playing at?" said Ron, mock-punching him in the shoulder. "Being all noble like that, letting pretty-boy Diggory tie with you."

"I'm standing right here," said Cedric mildly.

"I know, mate," said Ron. "You're hard to miss, being such a pretty-boy and all."

Harry had to smile at that. "I'm glad I didn't talk you into taking it yourself, Cedric. That would have been really bad. Look, a lot of stuff happened tonight, and I want to tell you guys about it. It's complicated, though. I guess most of it started with him." He nodded towards the prone form of Alastor Moody. "That's the real Moody, but the person who's been teaching our Defense class this year was someone else."

And so he told them a story. It was almost a true story, if you didn't count lies of omission. Everything Voldemort had said in the graveyard, Harry summarized. Hermione went pale, Ron looked scared, and Cedric had a kind of stunned, frantic expression.

"He's really back, then," said Ron, sitting down heavily on the hospital bed. "This whole thing with the Tournament was just a setup. Harry, mate…" he looked up, contrite and small and Harry couldn't stand it. "I'm really sorry about, you know, before. I should have known better."

"It's fine, Ron," said Harry, patting his old friend on the shoulder. "You were there when it counted." Ron looked at him askance, and Harry mentally added _you will be, anyway. _

"This is a little hard to believe," murmured Cedric. He wiped his forehead, and looked surprised to see it come away dirty. He hadn't cleaned up from the maze, apparently. "My parents still won't say his name. Everyone's so scared of him, even now. If he's back… it changes everything." Cedric looked up and caught Harry's gaze. "Reckon you saved me with that Portkey. That makes twice tonight. I owe you, Harry."

"You don't," said Harry. "It was my fault you were there in the first place."

Cedric shook his head. "That's just not true, Harry. This whole year it's been one thing after another. You tipped me off about the dragons, you did the noble thing in the lake, and you saved me in the maze. If anyone should be the real champion…"

Harry frantically held out his hands. "No. Just, no. You earned it. Didn't you hear me? The whole thing was rigged for me to win and you still tied me. You go be the champion, Cedric."

"I don't think anyone feels like celebrating much anymore," said Cedric. "The Dark Mark over the Quidditch pitch kind of put a damper on things." He stood up. "I'll be the champion, Harry, but you're the hero. I expect I'll be Head Boy next year – " at this, Ron let out an incredulous scoff " – and anything you need, I'll help you with. I don't know what's going to happen, but I want to help."

He held out his hand and Harry took it. Harry felt something, then – a genuine good feeling, like he'd made a difference – but the moment was quickly shattered as a loud slamming sound drew their attention elsewhere.

"Sorry," said Hermione quietly, taking her hands away from the window. She slipped something into her bookbag. "There was a draft."

Harry was at once relieved at one less thing to take care of, and annoyed with himself for not thinking of Rita Skeeter in the first place. Slips like that were dangerous – forgetting things, making assumptions, trusting that the script would write itself in all the familiar ways this time. He needed to collect his thoughts, take stock of assets, make a plan. He needed time.

And on that note…

"I should get some rest," said Harry. He clutched his forearm protectively, playing up the injury a bit. "Pomfrey will be after me soon with all kinds of foul-tasting concoctions. You guys probably don't want to be around for that."

"All right, we'll clear out," said Ron. He gave Harry a concerned look. "Are you sure you're okay by yourself, Harry? It's not like you to just go along with spending the night in the hospital wing."

"I hardly think we should be convincing him to go against Madam Pomfrey," said Hermione. "Leave off, Ron."

"I just want to make sure Harry's okay," said Ron, shaking his head stubbornly. "Just want to make sure he's feeling like himself, you know?"

Harry's heart skipped a beat at Ron's phrasing, but he eased a small smile onto his face. "Ron. Look at me. I'll be fine." When Ron failed to look entirely convinced, Harry leaned in conspiratorially. "Hey, Ron – how do you titillate an ocelot?"

Ron gaped at him. "What?"

"How do you titillate an ocelot?" said Harry again.

"Harry –" Ron's voice had a certain worried quality to it.

"You oscillate its tit a lot." Harry leaned back in the bed and smirked.

Hermione clucked with exasperation as Ron broke down laughing. Even Cedric cracked a grin. "That's awful, Harry," she said, though she looked like she was fighting a smile.

"Blame Seamus," said Harry, shrugging. "Now get out of here before you get in me in trouble with Pomfrey."

The mood lightened considerably, and Hermione took the cue first, gently dragging Ron away from the bed. Cedric shook Harry's hand again, then followed them out of the hospital wing. Harry's grin slipped off his face as he watched his friends go. He hoped Ron didn't ask Seamus about the joke – he had indeed told it to Harry, but in their sixth year.

Ten minutes later, Harry was staring up at the confluence of black and white on the shadowed ceiling, the faint moonlight playing patterns and vague shapes on the far wall. Moody was snoring softly. Harry had endured Pomfrey's ministrations, and she'd healed his arm and his bruised ribs with her usual blend of efficiency and indignation, but Harry had adamantly refused a Sleeping Draught.

He'd refused on general principle, but he was starting to regret the decision. He tossed and turned, unable to fall asleep. After a few minutes, he gave it up as a bad job. Harry stood and threw open the window that Hermione had slammed earlier. The night air was crisp and cool and carried a faint scent of matchsticks and fire – the Triwizard celebration had continued, then.

Harry shuddered and folded into himself, collapsing into a raven. He spread his wings and flew soundlessly into the dark. The air rustled his feathers and enveloped his body, and he beat his wings, rising. When he'd cleared the borders of the castle's magic, he spiraled up several hundred feet, shifted back into his human form, and Disapparated.

He didn't miss a beat, turning the twisting motion into his first step as he strode out of the alley and into the Leaky Cauldron. One of the benefits of his three companions was the cumulative experience of three lifetimes with the various forms of magical travel. If he wanted to, he'd probably be able to throw a knife, Apparate, and catch it.

The Leaky Cauldron was subdued and seemed even more dingy than it usually did at this late hour. There were a few scattered patrons: a red-robed older man with grey hair eating a greasy chicken leg, a pretty girl around Harry's age reading at the bar, and a gaggle of middle-aged women clustered around an old gramophone. Tom the bartender gave him a casual nod as Harry entered, then did a double take.

"And what're you doing out of school, Mr. Potter?" said Tom.

"Triwizard Tournament just ended," said Harry. "I lost. Didn't feel like sticking around to celebrate."

"Ah," said Tom. "Shame, that is. Who won, then? We've all been following it. I hope it was at least a Hogwarts victory?"

"It was," said Harry. "Cedric won. You'll forgive me if I'm not quite ready to raise a glass to him."

"No shame in that," said Tom. "A goodly portion of competitive spirit is healthy for a lad your age, I expect."

"Yeah, about that," said Harry. "I don't suppose you'd be willing to sell me something a little stronger than butterbeer to drown my sorrows?"

Tom's eyebrows climbed his forehead for a moment before his expression dissolved into a sly grin. "Afraid I couldn't do that, Mr. Potter, you being underage and all." He reached under the bar and pulled out a frosty glass and a bottle of butterbeer. He poured the second into the first, then deftly snatched an elegant-looking but slightly dusty bottle containing an amber liquid from the shelf behind the bar and poured a generous dollop into the mug, topping it off. "My condolences on your loss, though. Here, have this completely ordinary bottle of butterbeer on the house."

Harry grinned slowly and raised the glass. "Thanks, Tom. Cheers." He took a swig of the liquid, which tasted like someone had left a glass of butterbeer marinating over a campfire for a couple days – but in a good way. It was smooth and pleasantly smoky and it left a slow burn in the back of his throat.

He sat down at one of the many vacant tables and nursed his drink. He was settled and unsettled – he'd done what he'd needed to do in the short term, but he didn't have any plans for the long term. Voldemort was out there. The Horcruxes… well, perhaps they'd keep. He wasn't blind to the dangers of overconfidence, and his future knowledge combined with the raw power to play in Voldemort's league put him at a fairly high level of risk for it. Breaking into Gringotts again was no mean feat, and he wasn't deluded enough to think that a curse that had ensnared Albus Dumbledore would be a walk in the park, either.

No, the more Harry thought about it, the more it made sense to keep things simple and direct. Go after Voldemort, keep the pressure on him, defeat him in a duel, and then contain him. Sentenza practically purred in his mind, readily supplying Harry with all kinds of nasty ways to permanently incapacitate someone without killing them. Italy's infamous Dark Lady had built her reputation on her talent for creative, excessive vengeance, after all. Even Voldemort wouldn't be fearsome if he didn't have any arms, and that was about the tamest idea Sentenza was whispering to him.

"Harry?"

He looked up. The girl who'd been reading at the bar was standing in front of his table looking at him with a mix of recognition, uncertainty, and curiosity. And, realized Harry, she wasn't his age at all – at least not technically. Penelope Clearwater at this particular moment in time was as old as Harry had been when he'd made the choice to come back: seventeen, maybe eighteen.

"Penelope? What are you doing here?" Harry gestured an invitation to sit, and she did. He took a long look at her, and came away appreciative. He'd never really noticed her the first time around, except in a peripheral way as "Percy's girlfriend," but right then, in this bar, in this moment, she was well worth noticing. She wore her hair long and loose, and in the moody light of the Leaky Cauldron's fireplace it looked bronze and luxurious.

"Looking for a job," said Penelope, blinking once at the mug in front of him, and again at his torn clothes. "What are _you _doing here?"

"Triwizard Tournament," said Harry shortly. "I lost."

She arched an eyebrow, and Harry was fascinated for a moment by the curve of it, how it framed her hazel, gold-flecked eyes. "Aren't you a little young to be drowning your sorrows?"

Harry matched her expression and sipped his drink. "Aren't you a little young to be my mother?"

Penelope gave him a flat stare. "Aren't you a little old to be dodging questions?"

Inside his head, Emeric laughed. _I like her_. The other two voices were more subdued, just murmurs. It was the first time Harry could remember hearing one personality so clearly.

"Aren't you a little old to be playing the repetition game?" said Harry, gamely.

She tilted her head a little to the left and looked at him like he was an interesting puzzle or a tapestry that was hung slightly off-center. "You were always a strange one. I remember people talking about you, and you were just some grubby little first year, and then right away, you caught a Snitch in your mouth."

_Imagine what I can do with my mouth now_, Emeric prodded him. Harry – quite wisely, he thought – ignored him. "Things seem to happen around me," he said instead. "It's not any less strange living through it."

She laughed. Finally. Penelope settled her elbows on the table and leaned forward. "I suppose this is the perfect capstone to my day. A little dash of weirdness to make all the rejection easier."

"Rejection?"

Penelope raised her shoulders in an elegant shrug. "I'm looking for work. I've been living with my parents since I graduated last year, and…" she trailed off.

"… and you want to live on your own, make your own way in the world?" asked Harry. He took another sip of the smoky, alcoholic butterbeer, smacking his lips. The stuff seemed to be growing on him.

"Yes, exactly." She flicked a finger across the table, her hands looking for something to do. "I mean, I love them and everything, but my mum drives me crazy sometimes, and, well… you don't want to hear about any of this, do you?"

"I do, actually," said Harry. "It's keeping my mind off recent events." Her face clouded for a moment. "But I'm also just interested," he hastened to add. "I'm going to graduate before too long, and the Tournament broadened by horizons. Some. I mean, now I know there are actually horizons."

"Hogwarts is kind of insular, isn't it?" said Penelope. "My friends are all spread out now. St. Mungo's, the Ministry, Hogsmeade… it's a bit depressing, really. And here I am looking for a job as a sales clerk or something."

Harry leaned forward and tried a disarming grin. "I wouldn't think it would be hard for someone like you to get a job."

"Oh?" Penelope raised an eyebrow. She seemed to have it down to an art form, a gesture with several subtle shades of meaning. This particular eyebrow raise said _you'd best choose your next words very carefully_.

"Sure," said Harry easily. "A Ravenclaw Hogwarts graduate with Prefect experience? I'd have thought you'd be a shoo-in for some cushy Ministry position."

"Well, you'd have to ask Percy about that," she said, her expression collapsing into something carefully neutral and guarded.

"Ah," said Harry. "I'd wondered about that. He, er, didn't really mention you when I saw him at Hogwarts this year. He was one of the judges."

For a moment, Harry saw thunderclouds in her expression, but they passed, and the weather was once again clear and sunny. "I'd heard about that."

"What happened with you two, if you don't mind me asking?"

Penelope smiled ruefully. "He ditched me for a really plum Ministry job."

"You make it sound like he's dating his job," said Harry. Then he grinned. "That's a pretty accurate statement, I reckon. Well, you'll be happy to know that his boss couldn't remember his name."

"Really?" said Penny, again with an eyebrow-arch. This one said _I am not altogether displeased by this information; tell me more._

"Oh, yeah," said Harry, leaning in closer. "Called him Weatherby all the time. And Percy just fetched him tea and acted like Crouch walked on water. He was a terrible judge, too. Bored people to tears during the Yule Ball."

"How terrible for him," said Penny, grinning and flashing a set of very white, very straight teeth. "I don't suppose he managed to embarrass himself horribly in front of everyone by spilling soup on himself?"

"Nothing so crude. He did have a pretty entertaining dance with the Headmistress from Beauxbatons, though. He may have been trying to talk to her about cauldron bottom thickness regulations. That would have explained all the gesticulating. Although… she might have just stepped on his feet." Penelope looked at him quizzically. "She's a rather… large… woman."

Penelope laughed again and twisted in her seat, raising her hand to signal Tom for a drink. As she turned, her hair fell across her chest in a liquid, captivating motion. Harry quickly diverted his attention to his own glass before he could be caught staring. Emeric started rumbling some very specific suggestions about what he'd like to do to Penelope, and Harry suddenly discovered an unexpected downside of sharing his soul with parts of other people.

Harry blushed. _Shut the fuck up, you old pervert_. He looked up in time to see Penelope turn back to the table, a smile still lingering on her lips.

"I'm sorry I missed that," said Penelope. "Enough about my boring ex-boyfriend, though. I read about the Tournament – everyone's talking about it. Tell me, what was it like?"

"Well," said Harry, "it had its ups and downs. Tonight wasn't fun, and I don't really want to get into it, but there were some good moments."

"Like what?"

So Harry told her. He found himself reminiscing. For him, it had been more than three years since the Tournament, and time and distance had made him fond. He told her snarky little insider tidbits that she ate up. He told her about Cedric – without the customary twinge of sadness and regret that usually accompanied a stray thought about the now-not-deceased Hufflepuff (time travel needed its own set of adjectives and pronouns) – how Cedric cursed when he'd drawn his dragon, and then apologized. How hilariously over-the-top Fleur Decalour could be with her insults. How she'd thawed a bit after the Second Task and joined Harry in teasing Viktor, the both of them giving him harder and harder words to pronounce, until he'd exploded in Byronic fury trying to pronounce the word "squirrel."

Harry talked, and Penelope listened, interjecting sometimes to laugh or ask questions. Her eyes met his frequently, and when he told her stories, he used his hands expressively.

Some time later, Harry realized they were the only ones left. Tom was wiping down the bar, the fire was burning low, and Penelope was giving all sorts of signals.

"Are you going back to Hogwarts?" said Penelope. They were ensconced in a corner table by the fire. It was warm and cozy and Harry couldn't quite remember when they'd moved. "How did you get here, anyway."

"Apparated," said Harry. "Special license for the Tournament." The lie slipped from his lips easily, like nothing. "I'm in no rush to get back."

Eventually, he knew, the sheer weight of the lies he'd been telling would become a problem. The trick, he knew, would be staying ahead of them and being quick and nimble if and when he couldn't. But that was okay. That was what Harry was best at, after all.

"Tell me more stories, then."

"I think Tom wants to close up."

"You could come up to my room, if you want." She said it casually enough, but to Harry, the words shot through his mind and echoed like a gong.

"You have a room here?"

"I do," she said, nodding lazily. "I'm here in London for the whole week, job hunting. I suppose I could have Apparated home every night, but I'll take any excuse, even a flimsy one, to get away from my mum for a few nights."

"Well," said Harry, stretching the word out and lacing his fingers in front of him, resting his elbows on the table, "I suppose one or two more stories wouldn't hurt."

After that, it was all formalities.

With Emeric's lifetime of experience subtly woven through his soul, Harry followed Penelope up the stairs and into her room not knowing the exact steps they would take, the words they would exchange, the gestures and smiles, but knowing the outcome with crystal clear certainty.

In the end, it went like this, because they were young and wanted (needed?) an excuse to touch each other: they sat on her bed, and Harry told Penelope a story from the Yule Ball, how he'd made an ass of himself trying to dance with Parvati. And she'd said, oh, you don't know how to dance? No, not at all. Well, why don't I teach you, then?

And she did. They shuffled in an awkward little circle on the dark hardwood floor of Penelope's rather small room at the Leaky Cauldron, and Harry put his hand on the small of her back, and when he leaned in to kiss her, she made a pleased little sound in the back of her throat and drew closer, pressing her body into his.

And Harry, pulling back after a second, breathless and transfixed, looked into her eyes and saw his own hunger mirrored there, and he leaned forward, fingers tangling in her hair as he bent to kiss her neck.

_Put your tongue in her ear. _Emeric's voice was almost a cackle.

_Shut UP!_ Harry gave the voices in his head a firm mental shove, and they stilled. Without really realizing it, he'd been walking her back, but Penelope didn't even start with surprise as her legs hit the edge of the bed and Harry collapsed, in stages, on top of her. Instead, she seized the bottom of his shirt and started pulling.

"Kiss me," she murmured, and Harry felt the movement of her words rustle through his hair. And then, again, as if the split second wait had been too long a pause: "Kiss me."

He did.

* * *

_Thunder, a storm. The sea hundreds of feet below, black dotted with flecks of white crashing waves. Raindrops made into lines by the speed of his flight. They would have pelted his face, but they parted in front of him like a curtain, nature bending to the dark intention of his magic._

_A flash of lightning. The dark tower starkly illuminated in the distance against the backdrop of the sea. Rough stone, no light from the windows. If a lighthouse symbolized hope, this structure was its antithesis; a tower of misery and defeat and pure, black suffering. It called to him._

_Azkaban._

Harry woke with a sharp twinge of pain in his forehead, and realization came a few seconds later. He didn't move, but Penelope stirred against him anyway. She muttered something in her sleep, her head nestled comfortably into his shoulder.

It was obvious in retrospect. Of course things would be different this time. Last time Harry had barely escaped the graveyard. This time, he'd dealt Voldemort a massive blow, cutting his Death Eaters down to half their numbers, if that. Of course he'd look to replenish them instead of dicking around for a year trying to get his hands on the prophecy.

That's why Voldemort was going to Azkaban. Tonight. Right now.

Harry started carefully untangling his legs from Penelope's. He tried to slide himself out of the bed and onto the floor without waking her, and ended up smacking his knee into the end table.

"Harry?" Penelope raised her head up off the pillow, the blanket slipping and pooling around her waist.

"Just need to use the loo. Back in a dash." Harry pulled on his pants, grabbed his wand and glasses off the end table, and tried to distract himself with thoughts of imminent danger. How could he be so fascinated with the bare curve of her back when just hours ago he'd seen her naked and wanton and –

That was _not _a productive line of thought at that particular moment.

He slipped out of the room, the light of the hallway intrusive and harsh after the soft darkness of the last few hours. With the smallest whisper of sound, he twisted and Apparated. The protective spells that layered his destination like an onion parted to him, recognizing a glimmer, a semblance of their old master.

Harry started casting as soon as he appeared. The spells felt intimate and familiar as Ekrizdis came to the forefront of his mind. The ancient, mad sorcerer, who'd been entirely uninterested in the activities of the previous hour, sent threads of joy swelling through Harry's soul.

_Home_, sang the Dark wizard. _Home, home, home_.

The top of Azkaban's tower was a bare, stone circle the size of the Gryffindor common room. The rain pelted him and his feet froze against the stone for a second, but then the spells took hold. His glasses cleared of rain, fixing themselves to his face, the space around him shimmered with warmth and clean air, and the rain diverted itself around him. A flick of his wand surrounded his feet in precise, perfect Cushioning Charms to the point where he felt like he was wearing comfortable shoes.

As an afterthought, Harry waved his wand and conjured himself clothes. The garment was vaguely in the shape of a robe, but it was halfway between cloth and mist. The white, smoky fabric swirled around him, up his back, and onto his head in a flaring hood. The ethereal robe was one of Ekrizdis's inventions, a combination of the man's laziness and his prodigious magical talent. It clung to the body and offered freedom of movement, could be summoned in seconds, and even changed color depending on the wearer's mood.

A chill seeped through the Warming Charm, and Harry's clothes darkened from a misty white to storm cloud grey.

The Dementors of Azkaban were here.

They came slowly, making no noise, gliding up through the open-air staircase twisted into the top of the tower. The circled him, not attacking, but not exactly welcoming, either. Harry stood in the center, breathing calmly despite the almost tangible air of menace they exuded.

He raised his hand – the one without the wand.

"_Palaver_."

It wasn't a spell, but nonetheless, the word had power, both practical and symbolic.

The circle of Dementors rippled with agitation as they made contact with Harry's mind. He wondered, for a split second before he was too focused to wonder about anything, what exactly his fractured soul tasted like to them.

_Show these creatures no weakness / Burn one to intimidate the rest / My children, my true children, my beloved children_…

Ekrizdis was the strongest voice, and Harry brought him into the foreground, projecting his mastery into something more basic than a thought, but more powerful, more complete. It was a command, a warning, and an affirmation of power, all at once:

_Don't forget, I knew you when_.

The Dementors… rustled, moving towards Harry cautiously, one at a time, testing his resolve. Ekrizdis sang with joy and effusive, radiant pleasure at the moment and the challenge – and Harry had to stop for a second to appreciate the depths of the twisted wizard's insanity. He redoubled his efforts, holding his message clear in his mind, allowing no wavering, because he was who he was, and they would obey him in this, and in all things – and the Dementors blinked first. They receded like a tide. _Go forth_, he commanded them in a language of intention of emotion. _Go forth and obey me in this task… be true to your nature…_

Harry sank to a knee as the last Dementor floated down the staircase. He took a breath, held it, let it out slowly. He stood up and worked the kinks out of his neck.

"Not long, now," he muttered, looking at the sky, spinning his wand between his fingers, his nerves betraying him a bit.

When Voldemort came, he came like a bolt from the black. Harry felt the protective charms around Azkaban tingle for a second, shudder, and fall. In the next second, Voldemort was there. He appeared in the sky a few hundred feet away from the tower, his wand already spitting jets of green towards Harry with impeccable accuracy.

They were met by the walls of Azkaban themselves, flowing up the edge of the tower in smooth, shifting plates, the top of the prison unfolding like a jagged flower. Harry twirled his wand at the ground, manipulating the tower itself – almost alive with Ekrizdis's magic, still, after all these years – like only its creator could.

The barrage of green light ceased, and there was a moment of calm. The plates of stone shifted continuously in and out of Harry's vision as he tracked the dark figure of Voldemort hovering in the air. The newly-resurrected Dark Lord must have been feeling spirited and lively with his new body, because the next spell was not subtle. Voldemort shot up vertically, then leveled his wand down at the tower and roared a word that Harry missed through the distance and the thunder and the rain. The effect was hard to miss, though – a lance of black, hateful light almost as wide as the tower itself rocketed towards him. Harry spun his wand, and the shifting walls irised closed in overlapping, interlocking shields.

The tower shuddered, but held. Harry directed the walls to unfurl even as he Apparated away, his ethereal robe flashing angry shades of red and black. He appeared at the base of the tower, outside looking up, only to see Voldemort bathe the spot where Harry had been standing with demonic fire, the stone plates melting away, pouring over the edge like lava, falling into the sea steaming and sizzling.

That gave Harry an idea.

He whipped his wand in a broad arc, his mind working on overdrive as he flicked between esoteric bits of magic. The spell he cast bore some similarity to the one he'd demonstrated for his O.W.L. exam as he'd made a teacup dance – in the way that a stick bore some similarity to a Giant Sequoia. He conjured and animated and transfigured in equal measure, his wand and his magic grabbing reality by the throat and telling it quite firmly to shape up.

And shape up it did, the rivers of red-hot stone pouring over the edge of Azkaban's tower suddenly reversing direction, shaping themselves into a single column. Harry spun his wand to the left and right, and twin whirlpools of water as tall and thick as tornadoes rose and twisted themselves up into the air. A final thrust of his wand – down, to the earth, tapped into Azkaban's magic, and a house-sized clod of stone and dirt tore itself from the shore and joined the rest of them in the air.

Voldemort was already countering him, his figure flickering with the shimmering light of protective charms as he cut through one of the approaching waterspouts with a great arc of purple light.

Harry Apparated back to the top of Azkaban, the tower several dozen feet lower and the stone surface feeling decidedly hot. He spun his wand in front of him almost too fast for his own eyes to track. The column of magma coiled and struck at Voldemort like a whip. The giant clod of earth spun in the air and started firing off pieces of itself at lethal speeds near Voldemort's airspace, restricting his movement. The second waterspout twisted itself up and exploded into a shower of liquid that Harry quickly transfigured into ice, then Charmed it razor sharp and set the cloud of it on Voldemort like a flock of starlings.

Voldemort weathered the storm. He Charmed and transfigured and animated and he matched Harry blow for blow, the giant earth clod exploding and Harry's ice cloud transfigured to sand, thrown back at him in less than a second.

Harry laughed, wild and exuberant. This was what he'd wanted, what he'd longed for. No words, no gradual testing of defenses, no holding back. Voldemort wasn't building up to his best spells, he was striking viciously, as hard as he could, as fast as he could. And so was Harry.

_A worthy foe / We'll burn him alive and use his charred skull as a wine-cup / We'll make him pay for desecrating our home_

The air was very busy – Voldemort had had to shield the magma-whip without transfiguring it and turning it back on Harry, and it exploded into sparks and cinders and a great cloud of ash. Small clods of earth were still raining down from the explosion. A sandstorm was brewing along the coast. Then there was the actual rain, which, if anything, had started falling harder as they'd fought…

Which gave Harry another idea.

Voldemort was moving toward him, no longer on the defensive, flying over and above the top of the tower, looking for an opening.

This would take careful – very careful – timing.

Keeping one eye on Voldemort, Harry diverted most of his attention to the sky. He…stretched out, looking, but mostly feeling. There was magic and weight to certain things, certain acts… and certain events. The sky flickered. _There_.

_Now / Now / Now_

He brought his wand up, wrenching it down and towards his foe, drawing a line in the sky between the dark, rumbling clouds and Voldemort. He roared his spell to the heavens.

"_Attono!_"

The heavens roared back, a thousand times over, as the sky flashed blinding white. _Thunderclap_. Harry would have fallen over if he hadn't been prepared for it, his glasses charmed and the spells around him correctly attuned. A close-by lightning strike has no comparison, no metaphor, no sensation that it is like. In the distance, the spark of light and rumble of thunder can seem almost peaceful. But nearby, overhead, the size and scale make one seem insignificant. Nearby, a lightning strike makes it all too easy to remember why human beings invented gods in the first place.

Voldemort, hoped Harry, was in no position to appreciate the majesty of it all.

Harry moved to the edge of the tower, blinking his eyes against the afterimage of the lightning, and saw a dark figure falling towards the sea.

_Tag / Gotcha / Checkmate_

Before Harry had time to crow his victory, the figure vanished, and Voldemort reappeared on the top of the tower a mere dozen feet away, his pale, sickly skin faintly smoking, his expression murderous.

They faced off for a tense second, wands held at the ready, not quite pointing at each other.

"What," hissed Voldemort eventually, "did you do?"

"You'll have to be more specific," said Harry flippantly, his mind occupied with Occlumency and analysis. Voldemort wasn't attacking… _he must be weak_. _I should go in for the kill_. The voices in his head chorused their agreement, and Sentenza whispered spells of imprisonment and binding, and Harry's wand started imperceptibly sketching them out in the air. With an effort, he stilled his hand. No. He would not fall prey to overconfidence.

"How did you do the things you did tonight?" said Voldemort. "What ancient knowledge did you uncover? There is something about you, Harry Potter, something that I will discover before I kill you."

The smoky, swirling fabric of Harry's ethereal robe changed to a mysterious, regal-looking deep blue. He gave Voldemort his best Dumbledorian faint smile.

"Some things were simply meant to be."

It cost Harry nothing, and if it led Voldemort down a predictable path in pursuit of the prophecy, well, so much the better…

Voldemort's red eyes narrowed, and his wand-hand twitched. "Surely Dumbledore cannot approve of the avenues your magic has drawn you down."

"You'd have to ask him," said Harry. "I think he'd approve of the thing with the lightning, though. Whatever else you want to say about him, you have to admit that Dumbledore has style."

"I _will _kill you," said Voldemort, the quiet tone of his voice making it a promise.

"Maybe," said Harry calmly, "but not tonight, and never in this place."

Voldemort reacted to that, a shadow of understanding passing over his face that Harry didn't like one bit. "You cannot stop me from retrieving my Death Eaters. The Dementors will tip the balance. You must believe you have an edge, some piece of magic you've not yet shown."

"The Dementors will do what I tell them to do," said Harry. "And you're not getting out of here with your Death Eaters, I can promise you that." With a mental nudge, Harry called, and the Dementors answered. They streamed out of the tower silently, ascending the staircase, winding their way around the tower towards Harry and Voldemort.

Voldemort's eyes flicked down to the scene below, and for once, they were wide with fear for just a fraction of a second. "What is this…?" He shook his head, glaring at Harry. "It doesn't matter. I'm still here, and whatever you were going to do, I can stop you."

"_Going _to do?" Harry raised an eyebrow. Perhaps he'd picked something up from Penelope, because Voldemort read his eloquent expression in a heartbeat. The Dark Lord pointed his wand at his feet, and something large and ghostly shot through the stone floor into the tower below. Harry recognized it as a _Homenum Revelio_ with some sort of Dark variation – probably specific to the Dark Mark.

The results of the spell were easy to read on Voldemort's face. He howled. It was raw, powerful, and laced with magic. Voldemort's anger at losing his last, best followers struck Harry as a physical blow and threw him off the edge of the tower.

Harry laughed on the way down, twisting and turning, changing into a raven, spreading his wings and skimming the surface of the ocean for a second, idly dodging Voldemort's frenzied Killing Curses. After a few minutes, he climbed to a reasonable height, transformed, and Apparated again.

The Leaky Cauldron felt warm and comfortable as he snuck back inside Penelope's room. The girl in question didn't open her eyes as he closed the door, but she smiled as Harry slid back into bed and wrapped an arm around her waist.

"Did I fall asleep, or were you gone kind of a long time?" she asked, her eyes still closed.

"Are you seriously asking me what I got up to in the loo?" asked Harry in a quiet, teasing voice.

"No," she laughed. Her voice was quiet too. They talked like new lovers, everything slightly amusing and everything private and said softly.

They were silent for a moment, and Harry closed his eyes. Penelope shifted against him, her hair tickling his nose.

"Why do you smell like the ocean?" she asked.

* * *

**Author's Note: The mood-reading ethereal garment is a Streith from Robert Jordan's _The Wheel of Time_.**

**This one was fun to write, even if it did end up taking a long time.**

**You might notice that Harry isn't entirely consistent between his internal thoughts and his words and actions. This is by design. Harry - and by extension, the audience - doesn't have a complete understanding of the mechanics or consequences of the soul-splice.**


	3. Interlude - It's All Fun And Games Until

**Interlude – It's All Fun And Games Until**

* * *

_DIGGORY WINS TRIWIZARD TOURNAMENT_

_A Triwizard Tournament filled with twists and turns came to an exciting conclusion last night at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. Hufflepuff sixth-year, prefect, and Quidditch Captain Cedric Diggory emerged victorious after a grueling Third Task that left at least two other Champions battered and bruised._

_"It was a very near thing," said Diggory, when this reporter caught up with him amidst the jubilation of his victory party, which was in full swing at the Three Broomsticks during the wee hours of the night. "The third task came down to luck as well as skill. I'm proud to have won, but in some respects I felt like the last man standing rather than the winner."_

_The modest, handsome sixth year was quick to sing the praises of his fellow Champions. "I think Viktor knows more curses than I knew spells, total, and he's obviously brilliant on a broom," said Diggory. "And Fleur's got a scarily quick kind of mind. She always seemed to be one step ahead of us, even when she ran into some bad luck."_

_And as for Harry Potter, the "other" Hogwarts champion? Diggory firmly threw his support behind the Boy-Who-Lived, whose entrance into the Tournament was fraught with controversy. "Look, Harry's just… he's Harry," said Cedric, who seemed reluctant to engage on the subject. "He's a fourth year, and he nearly won. That should tell you what he's made of. We all know his story, but not all of us actually pay attention to who he is, and the thing is…"_

_Lost for words, it's Cedric's girlfriend, Ravenclaw fifth-year Cho Chang, who steps in to answer. "Harry's the guy you want on your side," she says. "He's the guy you want guarding your back."_

_A curious sentiment. Diggory, after appearing in front of the maze clutching the Triwizard Cup, immediately accosted the judges as well as Headmaster Albus Dumbledore, and was overheard mentioning Potter's name in a state of agitation. Could this have something to do with the newly-crowned Champion's attitude towards the Boy-Who-Lived? "No comment," is Cedric's only reply._

_News of his victory spread quickly, and Diggory is already rumored to be fielding offers from several professional Quidditch clubs as well as at least two departments at the Ministry of Magic, but the budding talent played it coy with this reporter. "I'm not looking that far into the future right now," he said, showing a curious, almost guarded side that contrasted with his easygoing demeanor. "Sometimes life throws up surprises for you, and larger events overshadow your dreams." When pressed for more detail, Diggory simply shook his head. "Whatever's out there, I just hope I'm ready for it."_

* * *

In one of the high places in Hogwarts castle, above a spiral staircase and behind a large wooden door, Albus Dumbledore sat behind his desk. The Headmaster's office was quiet, for the most part, being filled with the routine sounds of life and work and peacefulness. The scratching of a quill, the rustling of feathers as Fawkes preened himself, the click and whirr of the various contraptions dotting the shelves.

Dumbledore was slumped over the desk, almost sagging with exhaustion, but his eyes were alert, and his hand was steady on the quill.

"One more, Fawkes," said Dumbledore. "And our work is done for the night. Though our real task has just begun." Dumbledore rose, making his way over to Fawkes's perch, folding a piece of parchment as he walked.

Fawkes tilted his head quizzically as Dumbledore presented the letter. "Emmeline Vance, this time," said Dumbledore.

The phoenix wasted no time, grasping the letter in his talons and vanishing in a burst of flame.

Dumbledore slumped, closing his eyes briefly, before returning to his desk. He removed his half-moon spectacles and sighed. A long night. A long night indeed, and the first of many, in all likelihood. He sat there, arms folded on the table, allowing himself one crystalline, stretched-out moment of serenity.

A bell chimed.

It was a soft sound, subdued and nonthreatening, but Dumbledore's eyes snapped open, his torpor shattered. He slipped his glasses back on, stood up, and walked, neither quickly nor slowly, to the shelf near the window. He reached over a whizzing, spinning globe and a delicate golden statue of a hawk to a dusty, ordinary-looking mouth organ shoved into the back of the shelf.

The instrument was chiming a slow, almost mournful sounding tune, the bell tones coming in measured, even steps.

Dumbledore sighed. It had been more than fifteen years since he'd heard the tune, and it meant nothing good.

* * *

_CHAOS AT HOGWARTS: MINISTRY OFFICIAL KILLED BY DEATH EATER SON, DISAPPEARANCES PILE UP OVERNIGHT_

_In a grisly spectacle echoing a night of terror at the Quidditch World Cup last year, the Dark Mark was seen over the night sky at Hogwarts as the Triwizard Tournament concluded. Official sources are tight-lipped, and unofficial sources seemingly contradictory. The story has developed long into the night, and as of printing this morning, the picture is far from complete._

_This is what we know so far._

_Last night, even as Hogwarts Champion Cedric Diggory was accepting handshakes and congratulations from an ecstatic crowd of hundreds, the Dark Mark was cast from the middle of the crowd. Unlike the incident at the World Cup, however, the perpetrator was clear. Bartemius Crouch Jr., whose death after incarceration in Azkaban in 1981 is a matter of public record, was seen in full view of the crowd in the late stages of Polyjuice un-transformation casting the Dark Mark, proclaiming He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named's return, and revealing the body of his father, Bartemius Crouch Sr. – the current Head of the Department of International Cooperation._

_Crouch Jr. was quickly Stunned by a crack team of Ministry Aurors. Disturbingly, Crouch was seen un-transforming from the form of former Auror and current Defense Against the Dark Arts professor Alastor Moody._

_"I'm shocked. Absolutely shocked," said one Hogwarts parent who attended the event. "I don't know what to make of it at all. Could that maniac have been teaching our children for the entire year? I can't even think of it."_

_A source close to the Minister reports that Crouch Jr. is being examined by top Healers at St. Mungo's to determine the cause of his apparent madness. "He's cracked in the head," said the source bluntly. "We're, ah, not exactly sure how he's alive, or how he made his way to Hogwarts, but it's clear he's acting on his own. Confessed to a whole load of nonsense under Veritaserum. Can't say more, ongoing investigation, you understand."_

_Even as the Ministry was reeling from the incident at Hogwarts, it was discovering a mystery within its own ranks. Crouch Sr.'s death combined with Crouch Jr.'s reappearance sparked an all-hands-on-deck Floo call during the night, and in the chaos that followed, several key Ministry officials appear to have vanished. In a sign of things to come, the Committee for the Disposal of Magical Creatures, on hand to control the various beasts employed in the Third Task, reported the disappearance of Senior Specialist Walden Macnair sometime during the Task itself._

_As members of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement arrived at Hogwarts in the wake of the Dark Mark's appearance, Junior Hit Wizard Alfred Goyle and his partner Derek Crabbe did not respond to the Floo call, and a sweep of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement turned up nothing. Similarly, a confidential source within the Unspeakables admitted that one of their members "left in quite a hurry" from a "regularly scheduled planning session" and "couldn't be found with the usual locator spells" when the Department was tasked with magical analysis of Crouch Sr.'s body._

_Minister Fudge has declined to make a public statement, but a source inside the Minister's office had this to say: "Frankly, we're baffled. We're all shocked at Barty's death, of course, but the more pressing issue is that we're missing a few people from almost every department, and it looks like they all vanished just around the time Crouch's son went bonkers."_

_When pressed, the source went on to say, "look, obviously they could be connected, and we're not ruling anything out at this point, but the Minister's convinced it's all just a coincidence."_

_Meanwhile, eyewitness accounts from Hogwarts indicate that Alastor Moody was rushed to the hospital wing, and appeared to be badly emaciated. Also present in the hospital wing last night were Hogwarts Champions Harry Potter and Cedric Diggory, apparently recovering from wounds sustained during the third task._

_One Hogwarts student had this to say: "Something happened to Diggory and Potter in that maze, and no one's saying anything about it. Everyone knows something's up, though."_

_Most disturbingly, on a night chock full of mysterious events and suspicious disappearances, the _Prophet's_ own Rita Skeeter, stationed at Hogwarts to report on the Triwzard Tournament, failed to make her regularly scheduled deadline after the conclusion of the third task._

_As the hours tick by into the morning, the Minister's silence has this newspaper wondering: what does he know, and why is he hiding it from us?_

* * *

The plaza outside King's Cross was drenched with rain, the straight concrete lines glassy and rippling with raindrops like the surface of a pond. Albus Dumbledore stood in the open, his Muggle suit perhaps out of fashion, but dry. The rain, for some reason, never seemed to find the man's body, though he made no real move to avoid it.

The crowd ignored him. They were busy, scurrying from one place to another. Dumbledore's stationary posture and somewhat odd clothing drew a few looks, but no one paid him much mind. For a few minutes, Dumbledore simply waited, betraying no outward sign of any particular emotion.

Through the crowd, he saw him. Tom Riddle made no bones about being a wizard, made no concessions to blending in with Muggles. His black robe stood stark against his pale, reptilian flesh, and his eyes were an unnatural red. Without even concentrating, Dumbledore could feel the ripples and warps of Tom's sinister brand of magic twist the air. The Muggles avoided him, making a space, and though they were hardly aware of the thing they avoided, part of them must have known, for when they neared Tom Riddle, they tightened their coats and stepped quickly.

Neither wizard made a move. They simply regarded each other through the raindrops and the milling crowd.

Finally, Riddle drew his wand, his spindly fingers fluid in their motion as he reached into his black robe. He casually waved it at a passing Muggle, and the man jerked to a stop, eyes going glassy. The man, who wore a neatly-pressed suit that was all corners and sharp angles, with a haircut to match, started making his way through the crowd towards Dumbledore, arms swinging stiffly, like a puppet.

Dumbledore raised an eyebrow, stifling a burst of irritation. Tom was many things, but subtle was not one of them.

The man lurched to a stop in front of Dumbledore, and when he spoke, it was with Tom Riddle's voice.

"Dumbledore."

Dumbledore inclined his head. "Hello, Tom. I confess, I hoped we wouldn't meet again. An idle hope, I fear. You never did have the strength to die gracefully."

The man's mouth twitched into something resembling a smile. "Always the same song with you. Always the same, tired words. That you can be so dismissive when I stand before you, a living testament to the power of my magic, is all the proof I need that you are, as you ever were, a deluded old fool."

"And quite proud of it," said Dumbledore cheerfully. He spread his arms. "I presume that this is no mere social call? You never used our… cease-fire agreement… for anything so trivial as insults. I do hope that resurrection has not made you petty."

"I wish only to congratulate you, Dumbledore." The man's smile was predatory. Dumbledore, who was keeping a careful eye on Riddle, who still stood some distance away, watched Riddle's wand flick sharply upwards, and a vial of silvery liquid appeared in the puppet's hand.

"The young Potter brat surprised me. He was ruthless. I never thought you'd have gone so far, molding him into something like that." The puppet dropped the vial, and Dumbledore caught it adroitly, sensing nothing magically amiss. "He seemed to like keeping secrets. I wonder what he's keeping even from you."

Dumbledore brought the vial to his face, staring at what was clearly a Pensieve memory. "I fear you've wasted a trip, Tom. Young Harry was already kind enough to recount the memory of your battle, and I daresay he displayed uncommon bravery in escaping you and your Death Eater friends. But ruthlessness? Secrecy? No. Never that. Never Harry."

The puppet's eyes widened, and a gleeful, cruel smirk appeared on his face, a mockery of a human expression. "Is that what he told you? My, my. Losing your touch, Dumbledore. Could the brat have you so completely fooled? And I thought my opinion of you could sink no lower."

Frowning, Dumbledore stayed silent, though his mind was racing. He slipped the vial into the pocket of his suit.

"I shall enjoy our next meeting, Dumbledore," said the puppet. "Though you won't." And with that, the man collapsed, the strings broken. He got too his feet, shakily, and looked around, completely baffled. Dumbledore gave him a commiserating look, and the man wandered off towards King's Cross.

Albus Dumbledore and Tom Riddle looked at each other from across the square. Dumbledore tilted his head, his mind still switching rapidly between thoughts, sure he was missing something. Riddle, reading his expression, laughed, and Dumbledore could hear it even over the crowd. Riddle turned and vanished.

The moment he'd gone, Dumbledore turned and Apparated to the gates of Hogwarts. He started walking up to the school, the memory of Riddle's laugh echoing in his mind, wearing at him like a pebble in his shoe.

* * *

_AZKABAN ATTACKED; AT LEAST FIVE PRISONERS DEAD_

_Coming in the wake of last night's chaotic news of Ministry disappearances, the death of Bartemius Crouch, and the re-appearance of his presumed-dead son, another shock came at approximately seven o'clock this morning as Ministry liaisons to Azkaban reported unusual communications from the Dementors. Apparently, the island prison was the site of an unconfirmed breakout attempt that left several prisoners dead._

_"All the Dementors would say is that the tower itself is badly damaged," said one Ministry official who declined to be identified. "They were – and I don't use this word lightly when it comes to Dementors – spooked. Whatever happened at Azkaban last night, it was big. That's all I can say."_

_At least five prisoners died in the attack, and as of yet, there are no reports that any prisoners made it off the island. "We're looking into it," said the same official, "but quite honestly it's a low priority right now. We're still quite pressed trying to figure out how we lost something like seventeen Ministry people last night, thank you very much. Prisoners will have to wait."_

_When asked if the attack on the prison could be connected to the events of last night, particularly Crouch Jr., who was an inmate of Azkaban before his apparent death, the official replied: "Possibly. Maybe. Ask someone else. I just pulled a twenty-hour shift, and I really can't consider your crazy theories at the moment."_

* * *

Dumbledore stepped out of the Pensieve, his face ashen. Fawkes squawked in alarm, sensing his master's distress. Dumbledore leaned on his desk, breathing heavily.

"Oh, Harry," said Dumbledore, his voice trembling as he looked back at the silvery liquid, as it formed into swirling images of death and chaos and madness. "What have you done?"

* * *

**A/N: Finally figured out where I was going with this. There will be two more chapters, at which point there will be a conclusion. There may or may not be a sequel called _The Greater Madness _(tip of the hat to 'Drome for coming up with the title.)**


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